Could you be doing more to improve health and safety at work?
Posted on 17th May, 2016 | By Lorretta Tatham
Every day workers risk injury in the workplace. In fact, an estimated 2.1 million working days were lost due to handling injuries, slips, and trips between 2014-15 alone. This number doesn’t even cover the days lost due to other work-related accidents and injuries. Of course, safety at work could be vastly reduced with improved health and safety measures across the board. Risk management needs to get better, the number of accidents resulting from slips, trips, and falls needs to be reduced, and where workplace sites are busy with moving objects and vehicles, better measures need to be taken too.
As an employer, you’ll know just how important improving health and safety is. It not only reduces the number of accidents in your workplace, it also reduces the number of sick days too – which year-on-year cost your company thousands. Along with better health and safety also comes improved morale – a must for a company seeking longevity.
Three ways to reduce the risk of accident and injury
While improving health and safety measures can seem like an overwhelming task, the changes you make don’t have to be costly or drastic. Simple measures, as listed below, can make a huge difference to the safety of your workplace and health of your employees.
- Identify and control workplace hazards
All workplaces carry hazards, the important thing is knowing what they are. Get together with your team and brainstorm the challenges faced on a daily basis. Whether it’s issues related to working from a height or risks associated with carrying heavy loads, list down everything that comes up.
Following this, develop a safety plan and share it with your team. It’s important that all employees are aware of your plan so that they can ensure they work safely too. It might also be worth getting some of your team skilled in first aid. Even if you have a first aid kit on site, it’s not much use if none of your employees have the proper training. Why not take a look at our First Aid training course to find out more?
- Carry out regular inspections
Even if you’ve got a safety plan in place, standards do drop – especially when workers are overworked and tired. Regularly check all equipment and tools and get workers to inspect equipment prior to use too. It’s also important to check for slip and trip hazards and check your staff are following all your safety protocols.
If employees are struggling to follow your new health and safety plan, why not plan a training day to enhance their knowledge and skills? Whether your main issues are working safely from a height or exposure to asbestos, we have the perfect course.
- Maintain safety records
One of the best ways to improve health and safety in the workplace is through the learning cycle. Should accidents or injury occur, make sure everything is recorded and that the incident is properly investigated.
By carrying out this process, you’ll often find ways to prevent such accidents from happening again. It’s better to address these issues than to turn a blind eye.
To find out more about our Safety Training courses, visit our safety training courses page or call our team on 01282 615517.